No hanging back, no waiting in the wings.
I will try and I will teach my girls to try.
Together we will watch our lives unfold.
No goals or aspirations for the coming year,
just twelve months living in the moment.
The last year has been remarkable.
So many adventures yet still a time of waiting.
The season of waiting is now over and we will move forward simply trying.
I had not spent a holiday alone until the divorce.
I went straight from my parent’s home to my husband’s bed.
For 15 years holiday’s were spent splitting time with both sets of families.
Christmas Eve with one and Christmas day with the others.
There was a frenzied pace to it all that many years left me scratching my head as to why I felt so unsatisfied.
But on that first Christmas Eve after my separation, as I sat alone in my home, I felt the pain in my solitude. How I would have given anything in that moment to have the chaos back.
Each holiday since, I am confronted with the opportunity for one day to be purely alone.
A day when the world stops, stores close and families pull tight, I am given a choice to sit in pain or live in my solitude.
I choose the later this year.
I wont pretend I did something magnificent.
I wont tell you there weren’t glimpses of raw emotion that crept out.
What I will say is that I ran.
I made myself dinner.
I soaked in the lights on my tree while presents were wrapped.
And on a day when the world tells me I should not be alone,
I faced my solitude with gratitude.
The pain began in November of 2014, an aching in my chest at odd hours during the day.
A family history of Arrhythmia’s encouraged the doctors to explore more thoroughly the reasons.
An echocardiogram and a month with a monitor strapped to my chest showed a healthy heart.
The clinching in my chest was coming from external factors, a sensitivity to caffeine that didn’t exist previously.
I abandoned my coffee obsession cold turkey, slept more and drank less
The fear I felt alone in those moments in my physicians office led me to make the changes.
As the year went on, I slipped. First with the coffee, one cup then two a day.
I began to sleep less.
I made excuses for the pressure building in my body.
As often happens in life, just as I felt a season of calm ahead, the storm rolled in and knocked me off kilter.
There I stood on Monday, hand clenched over my heart, not comprehending that the pain was of my own making.
I thought I was managing the load when in fact I was not.
Choices I made had brought me to this moment.
So all that is left now is to continue forward with the knowledge that I need to do a better job.
I will forgive my own failings,
put away the cups of coffee, embrace my yogi tea.
I will sleep more and worry less.
I will dance down the path in front of me, knowing that heartache always returns.
I will carry the load, aware that it is not the weight but the distribution of it that matters most.
The book lives in my cupboard.
Dog-eared and worn, cover long since lost.
It comes out once a year as Christmas tradition demands its recipe for peanut butter cookies.
So we sit together, stirring and scooping the peanut butter goodness.
The years fall away. The girls grow and the tradition remains as if nothing has shifted.
It doesn’t recognize one less person around the counter.
The tradition delights in the joy of the making of a moment.
As each candy is unwrapped, it doesn’t acknowledge that this year Ellie is the one to make the candy train and Audrey has graduated to rolling peanut butter balls.
Nor does it see that Sid is actually in charge of the baking and I their momma am now just a witness to it all unfolding. My hands are no longer needed, just my gaze taking it all in, recording the memory.
The tradition will out survive me.
My girls will teach their girls and what will be left is that book and
the feelings of joy in the moment.
We went to the tree farm, our yearly tradition.
Determined this year that we would get her down on our own. Previous years had resulted in the long trek back to the main house asking for help.
9 feet and 20 mins later she was down and we were smiling.
We did it together.
It’s these small moments of victory that give me the most gratification.
Little victories, everyday.
My talented friend Robin (http://allthesmallthings.format.com) came over in October to document my mother’s 70th birthday celebration.
Now, more then ever, it’s important to me to have these moments captured.
I was taught to say my prayers each night.
The Our Father as an end note to my day.
On Sunday’s I sat in the wooden pew and watched my papa preach.
He weaved stories.
Words strung together.
Me straining to understand what they meant for my life.
Years passed. Different wooden pews. Different men and women with their words and my ache to understand.
And then these last 8 years the clarity came in moments least expected.
Moments alone with joy and with grief, I came to realize I wasn’t by myself.
Turning to him, head bowed, heart opened in prayer, I learned that I was supported in my aloneness.
He would carry me, if only I brought myself to his feet.
So I have.
On days when the dog throws up on the carpet, when I forget to pack lunches or when my flight is delayed three times over and I miss those meetings a thousand miles away;
I look to him in my exasperation.
When the girl’s dad tells me he has made the decision to remarry or Audrey’s third grade teacher praises her social intelligence;
I turn to him to guide my response.
The understanding reached.
I can be alone, together.
They handle it all with the grace grown women envy.
Together we navigate the hello’s and the goodbye’s that have grown easier over time.
Audrey to me last night at bed “I miss you when we are gone but I am so happy to be with Dad”.
They are learning a lesson now. There will always be someone in their life to miss.
But this missing is for the moment. The goodbye not forever and the ties that bind us as family, them to me and he to I, will always remain.
I have the joy of watching them flourish under their father’s care, while my soul is feed spending hours focusing on what makes me a better mom, a better person.
There is magic in these choices we have made. While not ideal, not perfect- we have the chance to live a life filled with opportunity for all of us.
Today she is 70.
We celebrate the beautiful soul that is my mother.
As a young girl I remember her dancing with me while the Mandrel sisters sang on TV.
She taught me how to make chocolate chip cookies and let me eat the raw dough.
She edited my stories and woke up in the middle of the night to listen to my latest musings.
And now she parents another generation.
My girls have dance parties in her living room and bake cakes in her kitchen.
She teaches them about Jesus and loves them like only a grandmother can.
And while I always knew she was strong, it was on this day 8 years ago that her strength became our foundation.
Her birthday marks the anniversary of my father’s passing.
Their love story spanned 37 of the 70.
She still wears his wedding ring, keeping his memory alive for the grandchildren (three of whom were born after his death).
She loves him, breathes him, carries him; long after the world around her has let his image fade.
But, she is not stuck in the past. These 8 years have taught us that past and present can coexist.
She will not let his death be the end and speaks of a day when they will be reunited.
Her life is the greatest teacher.
Happy Birthday Mom.
Dad is proud.
Two years gone.
A lifetime lived.
Decades since that conversation which pulled the thread on a marriage.
In the months following book after book told me it would take two years to “return to normal”.
Two years and now I feel new not normal.
A new life built over these last 730 days.
It wasn’t always easy.
Nights and days spent questioning my purpose.
Wondering how I could move forward and learning to forgive myself.
But last night as I stood in a bookstore, girls reading quietly beside me, I paused in my reflection and spoke congratulatory words to the women I am now.
To come so far.
To live a life I can be proud of.
To acknowledge my faults but live in the glory of God’s grace.
The courage to reach for the next trapeze swing. No longer just hanging.
You’ve done good Heather.
Be proud of these two years and grateful for the journey.
A Joyful Life 